


The Worlds in Us

by medmech



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Travel, World Travel, relationship tags will be added as the story goes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-02
Updated: 2020-06-07
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:14:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24512920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/medmech/pseuds/medmech
Summary: Harry sees that for all that he learned and all those he loved, he never learned to love himself.Through cities and countries, muggle and magical alike, Harry searches for himself. Slowly but surely, he finds people that are just as lost and with them, he finally belongs.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 23





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> It might take a more than a few chapters for the Avengers to start showing up. Harry will meet some of them through his journeys, but he’ll also meet with other people; regular muggles and wizards as to set up his personality so this might end up going a tad bit slow. 
> 
> I’ll add the relationship tags as they happen in the story, there might be a few.

Hogwarts was covered in snow. 

There were thousands of witches and wizards in the British Isles that would say the castle was never more beautiful than when you first lay your eyes upon it in your first year, floating in boats of four and looking up at the dimly lit castle under the starry Scottish sky. And noone could ever deny that the sight was absolutely breathtaking.

But for Harry, Hogwarts was always more beatiful in Christmas. Perhaps it was because during the last weeks of december, the castle became even more magical than usual; perhaps it was because christmas was a time for family and it was in this very castle that he had found a family for himself and had his very first real Christmas. It didn’t matter why he felt so, it didn’t matter that he died a little over a year and half ago in the forests of the castle; what mattered was although all of his friends and family was gathered in The Burrow in this very moment, drinking mulled wine and singing along to muggle and wizarding songs alike, he couldn’t help but escape - even if it was just for a second - to see the castle at its most beautiful. 

The halls and classrooms would be empty, he knew. There would hardly be more than a handful students in each common room, half of the staff would even be gone; there wouldn’t be running students in the hallways, no hexes being thrown around, noone making out in the broom cupboards. Yet the castle would be decorated as if all the students had remained; christmas lights would light up the great hall; hanging from the walls and around the banners of the four houses, the tree in the entrance hall would put a shame to all those in London, every one of the common rooms would have their own trees and lights. And at the feast tonight, there would be small gifts for all the students that had remained at the castle for Christmas; and Harry knew that for some of them, the small gifts that they would receive in the great hall tonight might be the first time that they open gifts of their own.

Harry knew that the people that spent Christmas at Hogwarts weren’t all staying because they had no place better to go. But he also knew that some of them stayed because of just that; because Hogwarts was their home. Perhaps that was why he liked the castle best at Christmas, because the castle gave orphans their first real Christmas; because the castle gave kids who had families but were afraid to return a place to stay and at this time, more than any other, the ancient school of magic was infact more a home than a school. 

When he apperated back to the Burrow, there was a smile on his face.


	2. Chapter 2

It was the first of march, and Harry was frustrated. It had been almost 5 months since the last of the death eaters had been caught and the year he had spent as an auror trainee chasing the last members of Voldemort’s reign of terror had been alright. It was good, having the support of the ministry as he ran around the country trying to find the death eaters; it was even better to have a home to return to - even if it wasn’t cosiest of places. The best part, of course, had been knowing that everyone he cared about was safe; that there wasn’t a threat to their lives.

But now that all the death eaters had been caught and judged, everyone expected him to step up. To what end, he didn’t know. Everyone thought that helping catch death eaters had been the right thing to do; all the Weasleys had supported him, Andromeda had said he was proud of him, his classmates had clapped him in the back to stay what a fine fellow he was. Even the professional quidditch teams he had turned down had sent him letters congratulating him for choosing duty over the glorious game. Daily prophet had wasted no time proclaiming him the Man Who Served after the popularity of the name Boy Who Conquered had died down.

These days, the articles weren’t as complimentary. The wizarding world didn’t want their hero to continue doing as a simple Auror, they wanted him to do more; Witch Weekly wanted him to publish books of his accomishments, Daily Prophet - on its kinder days - wanted him to take positions of power in the Ministry and Wizengamot, on the days where they wanted to sell more; they blamed him for not taking up the rebuilding of the wizarding world single handedly. He could see it in Molly’s eyes that she thought he was meant to be more. He could hear it when Hermionie talked about her latest projects about centaurs or goblins. He felt the question in between Neville’s kind words. Everywhere he looked, he saw people that wanted him to be someone; be them friend or enemy, everyone had expectations. And Harry didn’t know how to fulfil them.

Afterall, wasn’t all supposed to be well after he defeated Voldemort? So why was it that he felt obliged to fulfil their expectations, that he wanted to make them proud, that he was afraid that they would be disappointed if he just didn’t want to change the world?

Why was it, that the boy who could triumph over the darkest lord in centuries simply because of love; couldn’t love himself enough to not be afraid to speak his mind and tell everyone that he wasn’t the man for the job? Perhaps it was because he was afraid to lose their respect, their proud looks, their love. Perhaps the boy who hadn’t had the chance to know the unconditional love of a family couldn't comprehend that they could love him just for him and not for all that he did for them. Perhaps it was because Dumbledore had set him up to sacrifice himself that he didn’t know anything other than trying to help and please people. He didn’t know. 

Perhaps it was time that he started living for himself and not for others.


	3. Chapter 3

It had been two months since Harry realised that although everyone had expectations of him, he didn’t really want to fulfil them. It was hard to break a habit that was years in the making, but it was time that people started to save themselves instead of waiting for him to save them, to fight for them.

Well, he would have fought if there had been a battle to be fought with wands but all the battles to come would be fought in Wizengamot, man and woman much older than him would fill the chambers in ministry and spend hours talking and fighting about laws new and old; regulations to be changed and updated; people to imprison and creatures to help: they would talk for hours on end and come to no conclusions as it had been happening for the last two years since Voldemort fell. It was a fight for those with a mind sharper than his, for those who spoke with careful words and concealed insults; for people who could sit still for hours and listen and talk just as long. He simply wasn’t the man for the job. It wasn’t that he didn’t care, he did. It wasn’t that didn’t have influence, he had it in plenty. It wasn’t even that he hated the bigoted pureblodes who wanted to hold on their Merlin damned traditions even after two wars fought over them. He would have used all his influence to fight equality between muggleborn and pureblood alike; he could have spent hours defending werewolves; he might have even spent hours pouring over legalities if he had thought that he was the right person to do all those thing - he just wasn’t.

Harry knew he wasn’t stupid, but he also knew that he wasn’t especially smart; action had always came easily to him, he had picked up spells quickly, performed them with ease, had enough power and will to perform magical feats that many couldn’t but he had never been especially good with theory, not with magic nor history nor in anything else. He hadn’t the patience to listen to carefully thought lessons, his mind wandering more often than not. It took him almost twice as long as most people to complete the simplest of paperwork, from homeworks to auror reports; he had always grown easily, grown restless sitting still for too long. Hermionie had called him hyperactive more than once when he came to find him in the auror department, not having completed his paperwork on time and trying to catch up on it days later.

His words were blunt and clear, often spoken with the heat of the moment; lacking the edge and detail most politicians had in their carefully constructed sentences. He had always had a faily good sense of situational awareness but had never had the eye to see the intricate relationships people formed, the feelings they hid. 

He simply wasn’t meant to sit on the Wizengamot, he wasn’t supposed to be a department head in the Ministry, he wouldn’t make a good diplomat and he was certainly not going to become the face of the new and improved Wizarding Britain. There were better people for all those things. Andromeda was doing wonders in the Wizengamot, Percy would surely one day run his own department, Hermionie could change so much between magical creatures and wizards, Daphne Grengrass was the perfect diplomat. They didn’t need him.

So in the second day of May 2000, Harry took his magically expanded backpack and took a cab to Heathrow. By the end of the day, he was resting in a dormitory bed in a Hostel in Rome. He wouldn’t see the article Daily Prophet would publish that night, or the ones they would publish for many days after that. And none of his friends would include it in their mails, knowing Harry didn’t owe Wizarding Britain anything more than he already gave.

———

The Daily Prophet Special Edition  
May 2 2000  
The Man Who Abandoned!  
As all of you, our dear readers know, today was the second year of the defeat of the dark lord widely known as Lord Voldemort. (For the rise and fall of the self proclaimed Lord Voldemort see page 3) Many a witch and wizard came together today to celebrate his second fall, (To see his first rise and fall from power see page 7) wizarding towns and alleys alike were a place of joy; there was hardly a spot left empty in wizarding pubs, many raising their glasses to the defeater of the dark lord: Harry Potter.

The largest of the gatherings was of course held in the grounds where the dark lords forces made their last stand, and the dark lord met his equal and subsequently his end. The gathering in the grounds of Hogwarts was, unlike those in Hogsmead and Diagon Alley, not a celebratory function but instead a memorial service. The service began with Headmistress Minevra McGonagall’s speech about the bravery of the students of Hogwarts who defended the castle in its hour of need, the next speech came from Curse Breaker William Weasley who asked for a moment of silence for those of the undergroud group Order of the Phoenix (for the Order of the Phoenix and Albus Dumbledore’s involvement in it, see page 4) that fought and died not only during the Battle of Hogwarts but also in many instances before that. The last speech was given by the Minister of Magic, Kingsley Shacklebolt, although noone was listening at that point; for the hero of the battle, the vanquisher of the Dark Lord Voldemort was not only not going to make a speech, but clearly wasn’t even in attendance!

This reporter immediatly went in search for the other two heroes of the battle. Ron Weasley and Hermionie Granger were in attendance together, seated intimately enough to remind us about the possibility that two thirds of the golden trio might be closer than it seems. Was it the relationship between Granger and Weasley that had caused Potter to not attend a ceremony that some might say was in his honour? Was there truth behind the articles published years back about a possible love affair between Potter and Granger? Had Granger favouring Weasley broke the trio apart? 

Granger and Wealey both refused to comment, and left shortly after. The rest of the Weasley family followed slowly after them. A classmate of the golden trio who wanted to remain unnamed told this reporter that “there was always a lot of tension between them and Weasley was always jealous of Potter, he had even abandoned Harry during that awful triwizard tournement!” There was also rumours that through the year before the Dard Lord Voldemort was defeated the golden trio was on a secret mission and Ron Weasley left them at some point! Was there something between Potter and Granger that pushed Weasley to leave in a fit of anger? Or was it Potter who sent Weasley away, jealous of his affections with Granger?

We at the Daily Prophet have done several interviews after the ceremony with close contacts of Potter to shed light into this mistery.  
…  
…


	4. Chapter 4

The thing about spending most of your life in utterly ridiculous living conditions is, you get used to it. For the first eleven years of Harry’s life, he wasn’t even entirely certain that he was supposed to have a room of his own; his normal was the cupboard under the stairs and he didn’t know enough about other children’s living conditions to realise that the cupboard wasn’t exactly a suitable bedroom. Things got better at Hogwarts, of course, but he still spent his 6 years there in a dormitory with 4 other boys and all that the Gryffindor dormitories provided was a four poster. He never really questioned why their rooms lacked wardrobes and desks and so he never asked the other houses if they had a desk to study, nor did he ever ask Hermionie if the girls lived out of their trunks as they did. If he had, he would have found out that the room would have provided them with desks, wardrobes and even dressing cabins if they had only asked. The year spent on the run sleeping in a tent, although a very comfortable one, was the icing on the cake; Harry spent so much time with so little that he found it hard to be comfortable with luxuries. And that was why through the two months he spent in Italy, he never stayed in a place other than crappy b&b’s and hostels. He didn’t even really think about doing things the luxurious way. Most would have thought it odd for a millionaire.

Rome, Harry found out quickly, was magical but without actual magic. The first week he spent in the city was spent eating his weight in pasta and exploring the muggle sights. He thought at more than one point that many a part of the city must have been built by wizards. How could the 1950 year old Colloseum still be standing otherwise? And how the hell would Michalengo paint the Sistine Chapel’s ceiling without levitation charms? For a boy who had lived as a muggle for eleven years, he sure was clueless.

It was at the end of his first week in Rome, just as he was starting to think about renting a bike -like the one Sirius used to have but without the magical additions - that he ran into someone from the wizarding world. And when he said ran into them, he meant literaly.

—-  
Harry had just grabbed a tiramisu from Pompi and was thinking about walking to the Spanish Steps to eat his dessert when he rounded a corner to ran into a very small person and promptly, that small person started crying. And so, Harry bent down to try and help the little kid.

A woman was approaching quickly and called after the boy;

“Ben, honey!”

So the kid, Ben, raised his head to look at his mom, only to see Harry first. He promptly stopped crying and got a starstruck expression instead.

“you’re, you’re”—His mom reached them and picked the boy up before the kid could complete his sentence. Only for the boy to start talking again. 

“Ma! he is on my book! the one with snakes and castles and masks and the bad man! you remember him, don’t you, without the nose? and Mister Harry did” –the boy made a few motions with his hands, resembling wand movements– “and won! can he be my friend?”

he turned to look at Harry after that, not giving anyone a chance to speak.

“Will you be my friend, Mister Harry, please?”

“Um, aye - I mean yeah, sure, uhm Ben.”

His mom stepped in at that, “We don’t mean to bother you, Mister Potter” But Ben was already reaching out for Harry to pick him up and not knowing how to say no to child, Harry did so.

“Uh, it isn’t a bother rea-OW!” Ben was pulling Harry’s hair, trying to see his famous scar. His mom put his foot down at that and took the kid from Harry’s arms, “Thats enough, Ben.” Just as the woman was about to apologise again and leave, he realised that Harry’s dessert had dropped to the floor when Ben pulled his hair out. So instead of going on her way, she convinved Harry to join her and her friends for a glass of wine. 

That was how Harry found himself sipping his first ever glass of wine, sitting with a group of complete strangers who were trying to convince him to join them on their month long trip through Italy. Perhaps it was the utter resilience the group showed in trying to convince him or perhaps it was that the group seemed like such misfits that he felt he could fit in or perhaps he had already started to get lonely without Ron and Hermionie around. Perhaps it was all of it that pushed him to accept.

——

Two days after the initial meeting, Harry found himself in the back of a van, on the road to Pompeii. His companions were a group of complete misfits; they were each so very different and so very similar that Harry could hardly believe they had found enough in common to be friends.

The woman Harry met, Celine, was a Canadian witch who had left his home at 16 because she had been afraid that her pureblooded parents might end up killing her for getting knocked up with a muggle. She had come to Netherlands and worked in the owl post office at a small wizarding community until she found a job as a clerk in a muggle bank with a few confundus charms that she had not been proud of. It was in that bank that he had met Ahmad, who was a quiet and kind medical resident that she had married a year after meeting. 

Ahmad and his brother Ali were going to be their drivers through the journey. Whereas Ahmad always seemed like a silent listener, his brother was the opposite. It felt like every sentence Ali said had a joke hidden it, he joked and laughed and did it all very loudly; every breath he took, he seemed to enjoy. He had just completed his first year in college, studying design and that was where he met his boyfriend Jamie. They seemed to fit together like puzzle pieces, Harry thought. Where Ali was boisterous and talkative, Jamie’s words were always well thought out; he seemed to put a great amount of thought into everything he did and everything he said, he seemed to believe in. They completed each other in a way that they were complete opposites. Even in their looks, where Jaime was even paler than Harry with dirty blonde hair and light blue eyes and stood over six feet tall, Ali was dark haired and brown eyed like his brother and was a bit stocky. 

Completing their group was two friends of Jamie; Alex who had expressed a preference to the pronoun “They/Them” and was studying Mechanical Engineering with Jamie, and Debby who had only just finished highschool and played the guitar like she was born with it. 

Two weeks after they left rome, in a coast town named Taormina in Sicily, Ahmad and Ali would tell Harry their story over a few bottles of wine. Ahmad would talk about how they had to leave everything they had in Iran. He would talk about hiding in the back of a truck with his then pregnant mom while his dad hid under it as they tried to cross the border to Turkey. He would talk about how afraid they were as they tried to leave, how they knew if the revolutions army caught them that his dad might be executed. He would talk about the months they spent in their home in Tehran after the revolution happened, how his mother had had to start covering her hair and how she hated it; how his father burned half of his books and how the house always felt like burnt paper; how he had been afraid at school that he would spill a word about the books they burnt or the alcohol they had thrown away. He then described his uncles wedding, without dancing and music; without drinks; man and women sitting in different tables; none of the womens hair showing, none of them dressed in gowns - no joy to be found at all, and only a few weeks later when his newly wed uncle was imprisoned for being a member of the communist party. They would leave after that and even after leaving Iran, misery would follow for they had left everything they had behind but the clothes they had on them. He talked about the years they spent in Turkey, the four of them staying in a single room in a distant relatives house; his dad trying to save money working construction and his mom doing cleaning jobs whereas they had once had a good house, good jobs, decent income. But the years of work would payoff, Ahmad would get into medical school; Ali would grow up not remembering much of those times, his parents would find their ground. But Ahmad and Ali would still leave for Netherlands when Ali was 16, knowing that if he stayed it would never be easy for him.

Harry and Debby would only get close as they neared the end of their journey. Sitting over an ancient wall in Bali and snacking on parmesan one morning, Debby would talk about how her parents came from high society; how they had always had a place to be as she grew up. She would tell her about being younger and trying wait up for them to come home at night from a function but always falling asleep before they arrived. She talked about wanting help with homework but there never being anyone around to help other than the housekeeps. She said she used to work hard at everything she did; at school and at dancing and at music but noone every really looking at her enough to be proud. She talked about giving up on waiting up for her parents to come home and then giving up on working hard to make them notice and at last giving up on them. She talked and talked about never having enough confidence because noone really seemed to care and always being shy because noone ever listened and of loneliness because noone was ever there.

Celine didn’t care much about the statue of secrecy, they were a bunch of misfits but they were her family she said. They didn’t much care that Celine and Ben had magic. They didn’t ask Celine to do simple tricks, they didn’t ask her to light the fire with a flick of her wand; they didn’t ask her to accio their socks when they couldn’t find a pair; they didn’t ask her to repair a glass when they dropped it. But they never failed to clap and shout and laugh when Ben performed small feats of accidental magic.

There was always buzz to the group. Someone was always laughing, there was always a debate, things never were quiet. But somehow, noone pushed each other. All of it was in a imperfect harmony; and Harry felt that he could have been a part of the dynamic if he only stayed. He couldn’t, tho. These people, older or younger, all knew who they were; who they wanted to be; they had accepted not only each other as they were but they had also accepted themselves. Harry didn’t. So he never told his story; but he still felt a little less lonely, a bit more sure of himself, realising that maybe, just maybe, he wasn’t a broken toy that couldn’t be mended.

When they asked him if he would come to their last stop with them, back to Rome to celebrate World Pride, seeing how excited they were; even though he didn’t know what World Pride was he agreed. He asked Celine about it that same night, only after she explained the difficulties many people faced that he realised that maybe there were a few things that Wizarding Folk weren’t backwards in. He had never seen anyone bat an eye at same sex couples at Hogwarts, never thought that muggle world might be different. He was glad that he had accepted. 

Harry learnt something about himself then. The fights worth fighting weren’t only those that concerned yourself. It shouldn’t matter if an inequity wasn’t about you; it should’t matter if it didn’t hurt you. Inequality is inequality. And every fight for justice, every fight for equality, every fight for rights is a fight worth fighting. There is no choice but to stand up, no choice but to stand tall, no chance other than now. 

He would stand tall, he would stand proud, he would always speak up for human rights, for human life. Anything less wasn’t acceptable.


	5. Chapter 5

Harry decided to leave Italy right after the celebrations of World Pride in July. It had been exhilarating to be part of something so large and so muggle. The word around had been that 250000 people had gathered in Rome for the week of activities, it was the largest gathering to be held in the city for decades. And it all happened despite the protest of the Catholic Church, The Vatican and the anti-leftist politicians protested heavily against having the march in the mostly catholic Italy; especially because it was happening in the two thousand anniversary of the rebirth of Jesus. Harry liked to think that equality won at the end. 

Leather clad bikers and a communist cabinet minister lead the march, followed closely by bare-chested transsexuals, drag queens in wigs and a priest in a clerical collar. It was all so very colourful; people laughed and cheered loudly, kissed and hugged freely; it was the singularly most muggle thing that Harry had ever seen. Sure, the wizarding world was full of sparks and colours and adventure; but never had Harry seen wizards and witches come together like this, he had never seen them be so free with their affections, so determined in their rights. Harry couldn’t help but think that oppression and inequity was what created the movements in the first place; injustice had a way of pulling people together, giving them a common purpose. Italy, he learned, hadn’t had much of a LGBT movement because even in the time the country had suffered a fascist regime there hadn’t even been any laws against LGBT people. The Vatican’s protest against pride had created a movement in the country, their opposition had advertised World Pride more than they had. It was truly a wonder, how freedom only became precious when there was threat against it.

Harry was glad he had been a part of something that had nothing to do with him, was bigger than him. He had been proud to stand with friends. But at the end, the time to say goodbye had arrived. There was so much more he wanted to see in the world, now that he had a taste of what it was like. His companions boarded a flight to Amsterdam while he stood in the middle of the Fiumicino airport, contemplating where to go as he gazed at the flight board.

A few cities caught his attention and he was about to buy a ticket to Petersburg when Harry remembered something Bill had once said about Cambodia. Was it about wizards and muggles living together? No, that wasn’t it. But it was something in the line of that. He could find out when he got there. 

After 19 hours of flying and two connections and four hours in a bus that felt even less secure than the Knights Bus does, Harry finally arrived in Siem Reap. When he got out of the bus, he was sure that they had arrived at the edges of the city. There was no way that he was in the city center. For as far as he could see, there wasn’t a single building that went higher than three floors. He looked for a cab to ask them to take him to a hotel but there were barely any cars around, there were more than a few motorcyles though; some of them even had two people carriages attached to them. Assuming that those things would serve as a cab, he asked one to drive him to a hotel. The driver said a few things in a broken English that he couldn’t understand, he just nodded.

The hotel, surprisingly, looked pretty good. The reseptionists English wasn’t great, but he did find out that he was, in fact, at the center of the city. When the guy asked him if he wanted to upgrade to a suit room for 5 dollars extra, he agreed simply because it felt so very cheap for something that was supposed to be a luxury. He was glad he said yes when he saw his room. It was a bit mind boggling that there could be something like it in a city that felt so poor. The room was larger than their common room had been, the queen bed softer than any he had layed on before and the attached bathroom had a tub that certainly had enough space for three people. He loved it. 

Unfortunately, when the morning came, he hated the food. There was an open buffet for breakfast, but the food seemed to be mostly Asian. He was all in for trying new things, that was the whole purpose he had left Britain, but he was a bit picky about food. It sounded stupid for someone who grew up eating so little, but it was exactly because of that he was picky. Too much oil generally made him sick, and spices didn’t help his stomach either. Even the omlette fealt like it was cooked with an oil he had never tasted before and he couldn’t say he enjoyed it. Luckily, fruits were fruits everywhere and Cambodia seemed to have a few that he hadn’t seen before. 

He explored the city for about an hour before growing bored. There wasn’t much to see in the area and he couldn’t remember, for the life of him, where the wizarding community was supposed to be located. He was sure it had been in Siem Reap. Harry thought himself a fool when he saw a tour company that had advertisements about the ancient Angkor temples. It only took him 10 minutes to be on his way to the site of the temples in one of the things he rode yesterday, the driver named it as a tuk tuk.

After half an hour in a rocky road, he arrived in the biggest of the temples, Angkor Wat. His driver was insistent on waiting for Harry to return to take him to the rest of the temples after he had seen this one. Not able to convince the driver otherwise, he gave the guy 10 dollars and told him not to wait if he didn’t come back in a few hours. It was kind of hard to believe that the guy would wait for him and drive him around all day just for ten bucks, and in this heat as well. 

Angkor Wat was amazing. According to his brochure, it had been built in the 11th century and served as a capital to the ancient Khmer empire but had fallen into ruin in the last two centuries. It had been heavily damaged during the Vietnam war and the civil war in Cambodia that followed it. Almost all the heads of the Buddha statues had been cut down by the dictatorial regime the Cambodian people had suffered under in the last part of the 70s. Around 2 million people had died during that time under Khmer Rouge’s rule, that was almost 25 percent of the population they had then. The country was still recovering. There had recently been some rise in tourism as the renovation of the Angkor temples - the largest religious monument site in the world- had began again after 30 years of interruption by war and unstability.

Harry tried to find a sign of a secret entrance or a magically hidden view in Angkor Wat, but although there was almost a palpable feel of magic in the air, any hidden civilization of magic users didn’t seem to be located here. He returned to his driver after almost two hours of sight seeing and searching and asked him to take him to the next temple. Even if he couldn’t find a magical community, seeing this place was worth coming to Cambodia for.

The second temple he visited that day, Bayon, was a temple of faces. The same face looked upon him on all sides of the temple, small and large; there should be hundreds of the carved faces. Sadly, many of the faces lacked a few stones and the temple has a whole needed a lot of repair to actually be safe for people. He was sure, it would be a lot more beautiful in a decade, when the renovations moved along. 

The third temple was, by far, in worse consition than the first two. Trees had somehow grown into walls and taken them over; some doors were completely blocked by rubble and some rooms - as this temple was built more as a room in a room style that felt more like it was a living area than a religious one - were taken over completely by huge trees. The tree roots covered some walls without even damaging the stones in some places, but in others the trees had spurt out of the ground in such a way that they had created a hole in the wall. Preah Khan proved the power of nature over humanity in a way that was impossible to ignore. Harry was sure that there would be an entrance to the magical area here, afterall what was magic but a force of nature?

He went back to tell his driver to leave and went into Preah Khan once more to search. He wasn’t sure how much time he spent gazing at walls and touching tree roots trying to find an entrance but his shirt was soaked in sweat and he was sure he would fall over from thirst any second. Glancing around to make sure that there was no muggle around, he took his wand and cast a silent cooling charm. He felt a tug at his navel right after casting the charm, a feeling of free fall followed it for a few seconds.

And then he was in solid ground again. Surrounded by the same walls he had been seconds ago, only now they were whole. The room that had been covered with rubble and the wall that had a tree growing out of it wasn’t gone, in fact it was the same exact wall and an identical room. But instead of bricks and leaves and broken stones; there were tapestries on the walls, torches floating around, trees just outside the walls that were moving. And all around, there were people dressed in flowing clothes moving around; children sending small sparks at each other, man and woman sitting and working and laughing and going about their day in all the usual and unusual ways. 

Harry had found the wizarding community. Only, it felt like they were always here; living in the ancient capital of an Empire long gone but unlike what the muggles saw, it wasn’t in ruin; nature hadn’t taken over, trees weren’t growing uncontrollably; stones weren’t falling. Harry was in the city of Angkor, in all the glory it had when it was first built. But only more glorious, because it had magic as well.

He smiled. For all the beauty muggle Italy held, he had missed magic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the next chapter will probably be Harry learning about different methods of magic in magical Angkor. i’ll try to draw a few things from Asian myths and legends if i get the time to read about them.


End file.
